1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a system and method for interconnecting computer peripherals and computers. More specifically, the present invention provides a system and method for simultaneously connecting multiple portable computer peripherals to a single portable computer interface slot, for connecting portable computer peripherals to a desktop computer, and for connecting a high density, portable, and removable drive to a portable computer.
2. State of the Art
The present invention generally encompasses interfacing computer peripherals with computers. To understand the benefits derived from the embodiments to be described herein, it is helpful to understand the existing interconnections and to see why they fail to provide the advantages and benefits of the preferred and alternative embodiments of the present invention. It is also beneficial to a reader to consider the following materials which are herein incorporated by reference. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/399,728 (now abandoned) filed on Mar. 07, 1995, and PCT patent application Ser. No. PCT/US96/03248 filed on Mar. 07, 1996.
The first improved interconnection of the present invention to be described pertains to portable computers. Portable computers are generally understood to include the family of computers known as laptops, notebooks and portables. They are known as portables because they are generally smaller units compared to desktop computers which can more easily be carried from place to place and used at remote locations, often away from plug-in power sources such as AC power outlets. The benefits of mobile computing can be substantial. However, it is often the case that the versatility of these portables is sacrificed for the sake of small size, lower power requirements, and generally any other considerations which make the computer portable. Therefore, peripheral components which are often a part of less easily portable desktop computer systems are not as easily integrated within a portable computer system.
Because space is limited within a chassis of a portable computer, and power constraints dictate that power drain must be kept to a minimum, most portable computers have only one bay which can be used to house only one of various peripheral devices at any given time. This bay is often referred to as a multi-function bay when more than one type of peripheral can be inserted therein to communicate with the host portable computer. A floppy drive is often the default peripheral of choice to be placed in the bay because it is used nearly universally for data transfer. However, a CD-ROM drive has also become an almost indispensable peripheral for computers today. Therefore, when a CD-ROM drive is needed, the floppy drive is removed and the CD-ROM drive is inserted in its place, or swapped.
A significant drawback of the single multi-functional bay portable computer described above is that only one peripheral device can be used at a time. Furthermore, it was also not mentioned that "hot-swapping", or the replacement of one peripheral device with another when the computer is operational, is typically not possible for floppy drives, CD-ROM drives and similar peripherals. Therefore, the portable computer has to be completely powered down before the swap can be made. When more than one peripheral component is needed or when the swapping of two peripherals must be executed more than once, the cycle of powering down, swapping, and then powering up again can become tedious and wasteful of time.
Therefore, it would be an advantage over the prior art to provide a portable computer which can be simultaneously coupled to more than one portable computer peripheral which can be swapped in and out, and thus take advantage of the ability to have more than one of the portable computer peripherals electrically coupled to the portable computer, but without having to swap them. These advantages include the ability to have portable computer peripherals communicate directly.
The next improved interconnection of the present invention to be described pertains less specifically to the portable computer, and more to the portable computer peripherals which are swapped in and out of the single multi-function bay. Specifically, consider the situation where a portable computer is purchased with some portable computer peripherals. Typically, these portable computer peripherals are the only peripherals which will communicate with the portable computer. Notwithstanding the various reasons for this occurrence such as proprietary connectors, pinouts or timing schemes, the result is that portable computer peripherals will often only communicate with the portable computers for which they were specifically designed. Now consider that the same user also has a desktop computer. It is often the case that the same peripherals needed for the portable computer are also needed for the desktop computer. Consequently, the user is forced to buy the same peripherals for the desktop computer that were already purchased for the portable computer. The result is needless expense to the user because of redundancy in functionality of peripherals.
It would be an advantage over the prior art to be able to use the portable computer peripherals with the desktop computer despite the proprietary nature common to the portable computer peripherals.
The last improved interconnection of the present invention to be described again pertains more specifically to a portable computer. The desire within the industry for an easily portable and high density, removable storage medium contributed significantly to the success of the ZIP drive. The ZIP drive is comprised of a drive unit which stores data to removable ZIP disks. Slightly thicker than the ubiquitous three and one half inch 1.44 Megabyte floppies in use today, they are nevertheless able to store about 100 Megabytes of data, or the storage capacity of roughly the equivalent of seventy 1.44 Megabyte floppies on a single removable ZIP disk. The ability to store a large quantity of data or much larger single files on a single removable storage medium is very advantageous. Consequently, desktop computers are beginning to install them as standard equipment which comes with a basic desktop computer system. However, portable computers have not been able to take advantage of removable ZIP drive capacity because of the interface requirements of the multi-function bay of the portable computer, and the size constraints therein.
Therefore, it would be another advantage over the prior art to incorporate a ZIP drive or other removable, high density storage medium into a portable computer to take advantage of inexpensive and removable mass storage capabilities.